and yet this phrase, simple and lucid as it is, conveys a sense of boundless tenderness and pity, playing over the surface of a deeper irony. Doubtless its strength and clarity come from the fact that each word is of the common coin of daily life; but its atmosphere, an almost infinite suggestiveness of familiar things brooded over in a wistful mood, comes partly at least through the colloquial touch.
Mr. Abercrombie has no fear to be colloquial, when that is the proper garment of his thought, the outer symbol of the inner reality. Nor is he the least afraid of fierce and ugly words, when they are apt. The last line of our passage illustrates this. Taken out of its setting, and considering merely the words, one would count a poet rash indeed who would venture such a harsh collocation. But repeat the line aloud, and its metrical felicity will appear at once: put it back in its setting, as the culmination of a wave of feeling that has been gathering strength throughout: remember the idea (of beauty annihilated by senseless law and blind force), which has kindled that emotion; and then we shall marvel at the art which makes the line a growl of impotent rage.
All of which is merely to say that the spirit of this poetry has evolved for itself a living body, wearing its beauty delightedly, rejoicing in its own vitality, and unashamed either of its elemental impulse or its transcendent vision.
[Rupert Brooke]
Born at Rugby on August 3, 1887;
Died at Lemnos an April 23, 1915
Probably most English people who love their country and their country's greatest poet have at some time taken joy to identify the spirit of the two. England and Shakespeare: the names have leapt together and flamed into union before the eyes of many a youngster who was much too dazzled by the glory to see how and whence it came. But returning from a festival performance on some soft April midnight, or leaning out of the bedroom window to share with the stars and the wind the exaltation which the play had evoked, the revelation suddenly shone. And thenceforward April 23 was by something more than a coincidence the day both of Shakespeare and St George.
Reason might come back with the daylight to rule over fancy; and the cool lapse of time might remove the moment far enough to betray the humour of it. But the glow never quite faded; or if it did it only gave place to the steadier and clearer light of conviction. One came to see how the poet, by reason of his complete humanity, stood for mankind; and how, from certain sharp characteristics of our race, he stood pre-eminently for English folk. And coming thence to the narrower but firmer ground of historical fact, one saw how shiningly he represented the Elizabethan Age, with its eager, inquisitive, and adventurous spirit; its craving to fulfil to the uttermost a gift of glorious and abundant life.
Now precisely in that way, though not of course in the same superlative degree, one may see Rupert Brooke standing for the England of his time. And when this poet died at Lemnos on April 23, 1915, those who knew and loved his work must have felt the tragic fitness of the date with the event. If the gods of war had decreed his death, they had at least granted that he might pass on England's day. In him indeed was manifested the poetic spirit of the race, warm with human passion and sane with laughter: soaring on wings of fire but nesting always on the good earth. And though one does not claim to find in him the highest point or the extremest advance to which the thought of his day had gone, he stands pre-eminently for that day in the steel-clear light of his gallant spirit.